Who Gets To Define What Spyware Is?

from the the-user? dept

One thing that's been clear for a long time is that spyware/adware companies and consumers define spyware completely differently. Most consumers seem pissed off over one main point: this stuff gets installed secretly without them realizing what it does. In the past, adware companies would say that the real problem is the "spying" and would then claim they didn't do that. They might be changing their minds a bit. We've recently been talking about how Claria's attempt to change isn't really a change at all. All they did was get rid of pop-ups. They still install secretly in too many cases and they still are doing things on the backend that make people uncomfortable. However, in yet another article talking about the Claria makeover, it's implied that this is okay because: "nobody much minds behind-the-scenes spying." This is symptomatic of the industry thinking that they get to define what does and doesn't annoy people. The latest example? 180Solutions is suing Zone Labs for giving their software a spyware designation. This is nothing new. Other companies have sued over the spyware label in the past as well. But, what it comes down to is that it should be the user's call what they do on their computer and how they define stuff. The industry doesn't get to decide what people want on their own computers, and telling anti-spyware companies that they can't point out that many people dislike these products and don't know how they were installed just makes it seem like they have more to hide. The answer isn't to sue anti-spyware companies but to stop making software that pisses off users.

Reader Comments

Re: Easy to know, hard to define

They were initally called parasites before the big boom of everyone learning about them. No one has use for them they are desgined to make your computer run slower and for them to basically steal your bandwidth for their purposes. It's kinda like someone coming in your house with no invitation or notice and taking a glass of water. Who cares about the glass of water, but what the heck are you doing in my house and why didn't you ask first?

Parasites won't go away is the biggest problem because in all reality it means more money for computer manufacturers. How many people get full of parasites clogged overloaded and have 0 zip nada copies of their Operating System to totally restart their computers? How many of those just buy a new computer for 500-1000 bucks rather than spend 150 to have their old slow outdated computer that's three giga hertz slower than the new one fixed.

Too much money involved we learn to cope or someone learns to make a better immune system to these parasites because there isn't one on the market pay or free that effectivly works on all of them. You also have to take into account that if you use say comcast for your broadband needs automatically you get parasites that cannot be removed without losing your connection to the internet. There is a fix for this but they won't tell you unless you harass them. Many major companies add parasites to their software now and there is no way around that because in order to have their software you have to agree to take full responsibility for it's content.